I was talking to a tanguera recently about the passionate aspect of this dance and she replied, “Yes, it should be romantic!” I briefly considered debating the difference between romance and passion until she mentioned it several more times in the next five minutes. I chose to let it pass…until now.
The nice
thing about a blog is it gives me a chance to explore the true meaning of words.
I could go to the dictionary and copy the definition here but that would not be of
much real use because words have different meanings to men and women.
I think
my respectable lady friend was equating seduction with romance and she was
afraid to say so. I could be wrong but that is what I think. I talked to
several more women about their concept of romance and how it applies to tango. I
didn’t get a straight answer from any of them. One mentioned lust, another was
silent and the third answered my question with another question: what does
passion mean to me?
Off the
top of my head I could only equate passion with anger but there is more to it
than that for a man. So it is also with romance and seduction.
Romance
is what men do to strengthen a relationship. It is something we do without the
immediate expectation of sex. Seduction is like romance except there can only be
two outcomes: sex or rejection. Romance is like drafting a constitution; we
are constructing a framework in which a future as ‘we’ can exist instead of 'you and me'. Seduction is
like war as defined by Sun Tzu in the Art
of War: it should not be undertaken unless the outcome is certain; failure
could be devastating.
Passion
is emotion. Anger, sadness, joy are all emotions. In tango, the song inspires
us with passion. Lust is an emotion but it is one that a man must ignore in order to lead. This is one of the great paradoxes of tango: the wolf
must be caged but maybe the cage door is open.
After eight
years of tango education my sex drive has been reprogrammed. The desire I
constantly held in check has turned into a need to enjoy my partner solely for what
I can get from her within the parameters of the dance. Our engagement on the
dance floor is no longer an opportunity to drive the ball down the field for a
goal; now it is a passionate conversation on the interpretation of music
into movement.
I
honestly don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I have to ask
myself now, “why do I dance?” For so many years I had hoped that my involvement
in this activity would lead to some sort of permanent relationship much like
the marriage that I knew so many years ago.
My
mother always said I was meant to be alone. I guess I am a loner who doesn’t
want to be lonely. Maybe I think too much about the meaning of romance,
seduction and passion. Whatever the case may be, I am certain of one thing:
dancing tango brings me great joy.
In a
world of war, famine and calamity, aren’t a few moments of happiness enough? Life
is a tango and I guess I’m taking it one step at a time.
Hey, check out this book about witches and zombies that dance tango:
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